Library Day

Today is Sunday, which means it's Library Day!!!  Not only did I look at the juvenile books but I actually worked on a paper, but who cares.  The interesting book I found today is called Kate Greenway's Family Treasury with the subtitle: "Selections from Kate Greenway's A Applepie, Book of Games, Marigold Garden, Mother Goose, and Under the Window".  The book is a compilation of nursery rhymes and very old game descriptions, such as "follow-my-leader", "puss in the corner", and my favorite, "battledore and shuttercock".  The illustrations for the games and rhymes are done with Regency style clothes.

I thought this one was particularly pretty.  The rhyme is very nice, too.  There are some incredibly funny rhymes.  My favorite humours one from the "Kate Greenway's Mother Goose or the Old Nursery Rhymes" section goes:

Goosey, goosey, gander,

Where shall I wander?

Up stairs, down stairs,

And in my lady's chamber:

There I met an old man,

Would not say his prayrers;

Take him by the left leg,

Throw him down the stair. (59)

What I want to know is why the old man was in the lady's chamber... hmmm.  Beside this book, I checked out the Heartache of a French Cat so I could show you how amazing the illustrations are.  This is one of my favorites:

Isn't it beautiful?

Looking back at this book and the new one inspired me to draw my own Regency pen drawings.  My subject matter is the main character of my sister's story The Tale of Miss. Davenport and Mr. Woodrosin (I'm not sure what else to call it because I don't think it has a real title at the moment).  This is Nora Davenport, the heroine of the story.  The book takes place during the Regency Era, which means empire waists!!!  I love that style and live for any chance I get to draw it!  These are two styles for Nora's masked ball gown.  Her dress's theme is butterfly/fairy.

I personally like the second one best.  It's extra elegant!

Recently, I finished reading Neil Gaiman's latest novel The Graveyard Book, some what inspired by The Jungle Book, but is about a boy who is raised by ghosts in a graveyard.  I loved this book.  It had a very uplifting ending but I still cried (I cry at almost everything).  At the end of the book, I felt like I had to draw something so I drew the Grey Lady whom everybody rides eventually at the end of their life.  Dave McKean, one of my most favorite illustrators, illustrated the book.  I pictured the Grey Lady differently from his version.  I saw her hooded, very much like the Virgin Mary (I don't know why but it looked cool).  Here it is.

I'm very pleased with this drawing.  Sometimes I begin my pen drawings with a graphite foundation but this one I went straight at it with pen.  Again, I'm very happy with it!

Greenaway, Kate.  Kate Greenaway's Family Treasury: Selections from Kate Greenaway's A Applepie, Book of Games, Marigold Garden, Mother Goose, and Under the Window.  New York: Derrydale Books, 1979.